A Bride Harbors An Intimate Secret In This Haunting Short Film

Set to marry a British man, a Filipina bride-to-be struggles with her feelings for a former girlfriend in “Jane’s Wedding,” director Cole Stamm’s 2014 short film.

Stamm, who co-wrote 2013’s “Riddle” starring Val Kilmer, said he was inspired by a real-life woman he met in the Philippines. The woman, who was also named Jane, worked as a housekeeper in a Manila hostel. Although Jane identified as sexually fluid, she told Stamm that she planned to marry a man “so that she could have children to take care of her when she got older.”

“I found this fluidity to be really interesting and started observing the LGBT culture more and more, eventually going with Jane to the slum where she sometimes lived called Paranaque, where I met all of her queer friends, including her girlfriend,” Stamm, who originally hails from North Carolina and now resides in Los Angeles, told The Huffington Post.

He had praise for the actress Angeli Bayani, who portrays Jane. “Angeli is really brave and imaginative with lots of technical skill. I gave her some brief notes about the character and watched her transform completely into the tomboyish Jane character within seconds during the audition,” he said. “The transition from Angeli to Jane was seamless.”

You can catch a sneak peek at “Jane’s Wedding” above, then head to Viddsee, which curates and shares powerful short films, to watch the full-length clip.